Israel on Saturday eliminated terrorist Ra’ad Sa’ad, Hamas’s second-in-command and one of the last surviving architects of the October 7th Massacre.
Sa’ad, the most-wanted Hamas terrorist, had crept out of his underground base and was in a car when an Israeli airstrike took him out. “Israeli fighter jets fired three missiles at Sa’ad’s vehicle in Gaza City, killing him,” the Israel Hayom newspaper reported. “Sa’ad was considered the terrorist organization’s second-in-command and the de facto deputy of Izz ad-Din al-Haddad, head of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Saturday evening that it “struck a key Hamas terrorist in the area of Gaza City.” In a later statement, the IDF identified the slain terrorists as Ra’ad Sa’ad, the “[h]ead of the Weapons Production Headquarters of Hamas’ military wing and one of the architects of the brutal October 7th Massacre.”
The IDF acknowledged the Shin Bet security agency’s role in locating the senior Hamas terrorist. The Israeli TV channel i24NEWS noted that so far he had “manag[ed] to surprise Israeli intelligence officials by constantly changing his whereabouts.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly ordered the strike in direct response to recent Hamas attacks on Israeli troops involving improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Sa’ad was responsible for the production of these IEDs and rearming of Hamas — in blatant violation of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire, the Jerusalem Post observed:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz on Saturday night said they had ordered the assassination of number two Hamas official Ra’ad Sa’ad earlier in the day due to his leadership over the group’s post-war rearmament activities.In particular, they referred to an ambush of IDF soldiers using an improvised explosive device earlier in the day.IDF sources also gave other specific examples of soldiers wounded by IEDs planted at Sa’ad’s direction in recent weeks.Sa’ad was also one of the few remaining living Hamas officials directly involved in planning the October 7 invasion and slaughter of around 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians.The Shin Bet and the IDF said they received intelligence in real-time that he was making a rare above-ground trip in the western part of Gaza City, and acted promptly to kill him before the opportunity was lost.Despite these statements, there are other indications that the defense establishment suddenly got an opportunity to kill Saad after a long time of searching for him and received approval from Netanyahu, without extensive debate and without informing the US beforehand.
Sa’ad’s elimination leaves 55-year-old Izz al-Din Haddad lonely at the helm of Hamas. Since the conflict began in the wake of the October 7 massacre, most of Hamas’s pre-war leadership in Gaza has been eliminated. The remainder of Hamas’s top brass survives by hiding in Qatar.
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